


Bad Trip

by irisbleufic



Series: Glow [4]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Caretaking, Conversations, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Illnesses, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Medication, Mona Wilder Is Wonderful, Nerdiness, Protectiveness, Sick Character, Talking, Todd Brotzman is a Good Boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 02:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16031429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: Dirk sucked in his breath, obviously apprehensive. “Was there anything else unusual about it?”“Well, the whole thing was messed-up,” Todd said, trying to downplay it, “but it did something to our eyes. Changed the shapes of our pupils? Like—like a bad trip, or something.”“Not that I have much to go on,” Dirk said shakily, “but I feel like I’m having one right now.”





	Bad Trip

Todd passed Tina in the stairwell on his way inside, his drop-off in exchange for her pick-up doubtless a great relief to Farah. She looked frazzled, so he gave her a concerned look.

“Your boyfriend’s a trip and a half on cough syrup,” she muttered, brushing past him in a hurry.

“Jesus,” Todd said, taking the rest of the stairs two at a time, “what the hell did you give him?”

“This shit with hydrocodone I keep in reserve!” Tina shouted over her shoulder. “Uh, Tussionex? Half a bottle left! Not for getting high anymore, you feel me?”

“Great,” Todd muttered, about to bypass the office and head to the bedroom, but that wasn’t necessary. “Dirk,” he said, cautiously approaching the sofa, “are you okay?”

Dirk, sprawled on his back in a surgical mask with one arm dangling, nodded hazily up at him.

“This medicine’s fuzzy-making,” he said beneath the mask, eyes fever-bright. “No coughy?”

Todd untied and pulled off his shoes, then went over to kneel on the floor beside him. He picked up Dirk’s hand, which had been brushing the floor, noting how clammy Dirk’s skin felt.

“If it’s in your lungs, might be bronchitis,” he sighed, leaning in. “Where’d you get the mask?”

“Mona’s extremely useful,” Dirk explained, tapping the fabric over his lips. “Dual purpose.”

“Preventing you from passing this on—and what?” Todd ventured, lacing their fingers together.

“Comfort and company-keeping,” Dirk said, over-enunciating. “She was reading to me earlier.”

“Dirk, do you really think it’s smart to make our friend collect germs?” Todd asked dubiously.

“Doesn’t affect her,” Dirk said, voice scratchy, seeming more lucid by the minute. “Immune.”

Turning this statement over in his head for a few seconds, Todd felt Dirk’s forehead, and then slipped his hand underneath Dirk’s robe. He sought Dirk’s heartbeat through the thin t-shirt.

“You’re not hotter than when I left this morning,” he said. “Wait, you mean to everything?”

Dirk rolled his eyes. “If anything, I’m less hot in both senses. There’s nothing sexy about illness,” he retorted. “Also? Yes. Mona can expel any pathogen she contracts.”

“Huh,” Todd said, staring at the unassuming, gauzy blue mask. “Great, then. Do your thing.”

“I doubt she can hear you as such,” Dirk whispered loudly. “She’s object-ing extra hard. Not as in ob _ject_ ing, but as in _being_ an object.”

“I kinda got that,” Todd reassured him, crawling onto the sofa when Dirk tugged at him and squirmed as far against the back as he could. “Whatever you have, I’m a carrier already.”

“I suppose,” Dirk said, shoving the mask up and off his face, setting it carefully above their heads on the sofa’s arm. “So, do we have a case?” he asked, pulling Todd against him.

“Another missing person,” Todd said, pressing his cheek into Dirk’s shoulder, “but Farah thinks it’s less an abduction and more the greedy fucker trying to extort money out of his wife.”

“Why on _earth_ do we keep getting domestics,” Dirk mumbled. “Why isn’t Farah here?”

“Oh, she’s taking Tina to suss it out,” Todd said, shrugging. “She thinks they can track the husband and intimidate him out of hiding. This is really pedestrian, trust me.”

“My involvement might have made it _less_ so, Todd,” Dirk pouted, coughing explosively.

“You’re too sick to be involved in anything except resting,” Todd said, worming a hand between Dirk and the back of the sofa, massaging down Dirk’s spine. “Got it?”

“If I’m too ill to be working cases, then so are you,” Dirk insisted. “Wendimoor hasn’t done the frequency of your attacks any favors. You’d tell me if you had one while you were out?”

Involuntarily, Todd tensed, the memory of everything he and Amanda had endured at the pool flooding him in an instant. The void he’d seen, that vast expanse, felt like vertigo.

“I didn’t have an attack,” Todd replied, closing his eyes, kissing Dirk’s shoulder. “I’m fine.”

“I’m choosing to believe you,” Dirk cautioned, another spasm seizing him, “but I reserve the right to ask Farah if you seemed out of sorts. Right now, you’re _slightly_ unsorted.”

“I’m starting to see what Tina meant when she called you a trip,” Todd said. “I’m good, Dirk.”

“At quite a lot of things with regard to our work and newfound relationship, yes,” Dirk agreed, “but in the moment, with regard to your frame of mind? Not so much.”

Todd tried to relax, but that just resulted in Dirk clinging to him tighter than ever. “Maybe not.”

“I said something that upset you,” Dirk whispered, probably because it hurt his throat. “What?”

“You didn’t upset me,” Todd said, closing his eyes more firmly. “It’s unnerving to remember.”

Dirk was the one to tense this time, succumbing to fine tremors like the chills he’d had earlier.

“To remember what?” he asked uneasily, running his fingers through Todd’s hair. “Todd, we…”

Feeling like an asshole hadn’t been high on Todd’s list of priorities for the day, but there it was.

“Shit,” he said, clenching and unclenching his fist at the small of Dirk’s back. “I didn’t tell you.”

“Whatever it is you didn’t tell me,” Dirk said plaintively, “you need to tell me right this instant.”

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s not the weirdest part of all this, but…” Todd struggled to find the proper frame of reference. “Amanda and I saw something when we were keeping that vortex between Wendimoor and Blackwing open. Visions aren’t unusual.”

“They’re unusual in that the disease doesn’t carry that feature at a baseline for most people,” said Dirk, reproachfully, his fingers digging into Todd’s hip. “What sort of vision?”

“This vast, black nothingness, like…those scenes in _The Matrix_ where everything’s white, only…” Todd shook his head in frustration. “Stars and galaxies overhead. It was quiet.”

Dirk sucked in his breath, obviously apprehensive. “Was there anything else unusual about it?”

“Well, the whole thing was messed-up,” Todd said, trying to downplay it, “but it did something to our eyes. Changed the shapes of our pupils? Like—like a bad trip, or something.”

“Not that I have much to go on,” Dirk said shakily, “but I feel like I’m having one right now.”

Unable to stand the fact that his confession was more harm than help, Todd lifted his head from Dirk’s shoulder and sought Dirk’s mouth. The taste of fever burned Todd’s tongue, electric.

“Amanda said it was whatever’s behind reality,” Todd mumbled when Dirk finally let up enough for him to get a word in edgewise. “Backstage of the universe, something like that?”

“That Wakti person taught her quite a lot,” Dirk conceded, slightly calmer. “She’s the expert.”

“Yeah,” Todd said, relieved, cupping Dirk’s cheek as Dirk kissed him again. “So don’t worry.”

“It can only mean your relationship’s on the up and up,” Dirk said hopefully. “World’s strangest sibling bonding activity, if you ask me, but who am I to judge? This quagmire of trauma has done you some favors.”

“My not-psychic, hyper-intuitive other half?” Todd asked with mock-disdain. “You get a say.”

“I think,” said Dirk, sounding a bit smug, “this means I’m not the only one who’s not-psychic.”

“Fuck off,” Todd replied, giving Dirk’s backside a light pinch. “Guess I’m some kind of witch?”

“Wizard or warlock if you want to be more standard in the gendering,” Dirk said, enthusiastically running at the mouth, “although I can appreciate your solidarity with Amanda’s label. Wendimoorian parlance smacks of the ridiculous—like, okay, I am really _not_ that fond of witchakookoo, but to each their own—and I’d much prefer to be able to say my boyfriend’s a wizard, because who _wouldn’t_ want a wizard for a boyfriend?”

“Time to put the mask back on,” Todd teased, even though he couldn’t help but feel flattered.


End file.
